Vivaldi/Piazzolla | 4 Seasons

Since their publication in Amsterdam in 1725, The Four Seasons have become transformed into the symbolic representation of Antonio Vivaldi: Louis XV once demanded to hear them on the spur of the moment, and from the beginning of the nineteenth century they were copied, quoted from, disguised, musicians drew inspiration from them, and violinists measured themselves by them. Today, they represent the most recorded piece of music ever. Yet, they hardly reflect the Venetian musician’s typical compositional practices at all. Composed far from Venice and far from the famed orchestra made up of abandoned orphan girls at the Ospedale della Pietà (with which Vivaldi worked throughout his career), they include settings and ideas unlike anything else. If, once their scale has been taken into consideration, they cannot be regarded as representing an “anecdotal phenomenon” (besides, Vivaldi used them to introduce his Il Cimento dell’armonia e dell’invenzione), it should be recognized that the Four Seasons unveil an original and somewhat surprising facet of the musical identity of the Red Priest. Of course, these are not the only masterpieces to arise from uncommon circumstances. In music, one can think of works such as Boléro, Le Carnaval des Animaux or the Goldberg Variations. The atypical unsettles as much as it stimulates. Nevertheless, Vivaldi’s case is sufficiently idiosyncratic given that he adjusted his manner of working completely so as to be able to compose these four concertos, and that he never returned to this winning formula thereafter. And yet, unlike Ravel (who would have voluntarily dispatched his ballet beyond the Styx), Vivaldi seems to have been very proud of this “symbol”, since he never stopped quoting fragments from these concertos in his later compositions. What then do the Four Seasons amount to for Vivaldi? What do these works teach us about this matchless violin virtuoso who shook up the musical aesthetic at the beginning of the eighteenth century – from church to opera house, from palace to canals, gardens and inns – providing the performer with a new identity, energizing all sound objects, even to treating singers’ throats like “a violin neck”?

Ast or Piazzolla

F o u r Se a s o n s o f B u e n o s Ai r e s 

Legends exist. Everywhere. Legends, which seem like invented histories, put together with dramatic overtones, also conceal a true story, and likewise (and rightly so), a legend is passed on orally, from one generation to another. In this world, many things have been created in this way. And amongst those things is Tango. Tango is not folk music and for that reason it does not consist of a collection of traditional dances. Dancing to it can be done, of course, but it does not come with a laid down choreography. Nor for that matter is Tango a musical form, having no defined structure like Rondo, Sonata, Hymn or Song. Tango is not fusion. Tango evolves. Tango is urban music which develops like the city does. If the truth be told, it is not just music. It would be more appropriate to say that Tango is a “Culture” which embraces forms of expression such as dance, music, literature, etc. Nailing down a definition of Tango is not easy. That’s why, at times, it is much closer to legend, as the great Borges said: “Tango creates an unreal, muddy past that in some way is true: an impossible memory of having died”. Astor Piazzolla plays a central role in this legend. He was a “músico de Tango” (as he liked to put it himself), both performer and composer. Born in Mar del Plata, raised in New York, he had an out of the ordinary first meeting with Carlos Gardel, working on a film set as a bandoneon and newspaper boy. Self-taught on that instrument, he became a compositional student of both Alberto Ginastera and Nadia Boulanger, and an orchestral musician with the great Aníbal Troilo. 1955 saw Piazzolla unleash within the genre his “Nuevo Tango” revolution, this coinciding with the departure from the most popular venues in Argentina of traditional Tango, to make way for the new musics of the so-called “Industria Cultural”.

La Primavera Concerto in E major [rv 269]

01 Allegro 3:26

02 Largo e pianissimo sempre 2:42

03 Allegro con Sordine. Danza pastorale 4:03

L'Estate Concerto in G minor [rv 315] 

04 Allegro ma non molto 5:32

05 Adagio e piano – Presto e forte 2:10

06 Presto 2:50 

L'Autunno Concerto in F major [rv 293]

07 Allegro 4:41

08 Adagio molto 2.31

09 Allegro 3:03

L'Inverno Concerto in F minor [rv 297]

10 Allegro non molto 3:13

11 Largo 1:46

12 Allegro 3:10

Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires

13 Verano porteño (Summer) 6:10

14 Otoño porteño (Autumn) 9:13

15 Primavera porteña (Spring) 5:13

16 Invierno porteño (Winter) 7:04